Thirty-Three

October 29, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem on the secret of happiness.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-three: the age Christ died on the cross.

Has one need for birthdays more than this?

In such short span one may our souls revise,

Remake our worlds and liberate our eyes,

Terrify us with the threat of bliss--

Yet years roll on with neither gain nor loss.

The secret of happiness is always love,

However long one lives. Birthdays wheel

Round and round this truth like raucous cries,

Eased into a vast silence, unreal,

Eased into a calm winds cannot move.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holid9.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

October 28: Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

October 29: Thirty-Three

Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

October 28, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a Happy Holidays poem about happiness as a decision.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Holidays do not bring happiness.

A day does not determine one's condition.

Pleasure? Even joy? Severe distress?

Perhaps. But happiness is a decision.

Yet happy people relish celebration,

Having much to celebrate, as all

On holidays ought revel in relation,

Loving well the world of love writ small.

Into life one pours one's inner beauty,

Doing, willing, being what one would,

As much in play and pleasure as in duty,

Yielding self as one pursues the good,

So living as though one believed one could.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/holid9.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

October 28: Holidays Do Not Bring Happiness

Proverbs on Happiness

October 27, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a set of proverbs on the nature of happiness.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

1. Happiness is another term for inner peace.

2. One achieves inner peace through harmony between what one does and what one believes.

3. Thus while outer events might make one happy or sad, happiness itself is entirely internal, and at all times completely within one's power.

4. This does not mean, however, that happiness is easy. It requires wisdom, discipline, and love.

5. Wisdom comes slowly, through the scrupulous pursuit of truth over time. Thus what one believes is never certain, but can always be sincere.

6. Discipline enables one to acquire habits in tune with one's beliefs. Behavior flows from character, which, like a mansion, is built of thousands of details, or acts, each judged not only for itself but for its contribution to the whole.

7. Love is the choice to open one's arms to life, enabling one to embrace imperfection. From it flow empathy, compassion, generosity, and acceptance. The opposite of love is fear.

8. To be happy, one must love oneself as well as others.

9. Because inner peace or harmony is never perfect, happiness is never achieved, and is always a question of more or less.

10. The inner and outer worlds are mirrors. How one shapes one's inner world through will shapes one's perception of the outer world. Thus an unhappy person is likely to perceive a world of lust, greed, and lies, whereas a happy one is likely to perceive a world of people struggling in the grip of love.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happpr.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 26: Forty-Five5

October 27: Proverbs on Happiness

Forty-Five5

October 26, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who knows enough to will the wind.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Forty-five finds fortune in her favor,

Old enough to know to will the wind.

Reason sees no reason to rescind

The choices that would lead to love she'd savor.

Yet there is much that she would leave behind.

For her there's joy in relishing life's flavor,

In being ready rather than resigned,

Vested in the play of heart and mind,

Embracing all the gifts that fortune gave her.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/45e.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 26: Forty-Five5

Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

October 25, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a twenty-sixth anniversary poem about the need to celebrate and renew happiness.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Happiness is much like brushing teeth:

A semiconscious choice become routine,

Performed through practices sustained, though brief,

Perhaps without much thought for what they mean.

Years of I love you’s, kisses, sweet good nights,

Touching, pleasuring, talking, giving, sharing,

Whimsical rituals, familial rites,

Establish a routine for mutual caring.

Nor could such happiness survive for long

The sheer redundancy of daily life,

Yearning for change that sometimes comes on strong,

Self-centered grievances that lead to strife,

If one did not each day renew one’s love,

X-ing out the fear that in one moves,

Taking time at times to celebrate

Happiness, and choose again one’s fate.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/happ77.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 25: Happiness Is Much like Brushing Teeth

You Had the Gift of Happiness

October 24, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is for a deceased loved one who had the gift of happiness.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

You had the gift of happiness,

The unrelenting grace

To see the radiance of life

Within the ruthless face.

Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes,

Paralysis and pain,

A flood that left you penniless . . .

And still you smiled again.

It wasn't pure naivete

Or something just not there,

Or, even worse, an inner lie

That said you didn't care.

It was a certain blessedness

Attained by very few

That let you live within a love

Within the love in you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/youha2.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5

October 24: You Had the Gift of Happiness

Thirty-Three5

October 23, 2017

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. This week’s theme is happiness.

Today’s poem is a number poem for someone who knows how to count her blessings.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Thirty-three counts well her many blessings,

Having come too far to be unsure.

In every moment there's a bit of wonder

Reserved for those who would refuse to plunder

Their portion for a place that's more secure.

Years yield good, rich oil through many pressings.

 

There are times one needs to change one's dressings:

Hearts and truths tend rarely to be pure.

Regardless whether welkins come asunder,

Even as the furies bluff and blunder,

Each acolyte of beauty will endure.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/33e.html. For more philosophical poems, go to https://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Happiness

October 23: Thirty-Three5